When we’re with the Debbies of this world, their negativity does a Dracula number on us and drains our energy.

A breast cancer survivor of more than 20 years, Hindenach has learned to ditch Debbie as often as she can.

“I’ve learned that there are energy givers and takers,” Hindenach wrote The Press, which invited readers to share their cancer experience. She calls the extremes “energy enrichers” and “energy depleters.”

“Because I feel that I am responsible for my part in keeping my immune system up, I’ve chosen where I want and need to spend my time.

“We all know stress isn’t good for us, so a gift I’ve given myself is to be sure to include the positive people who ‘get it’ about life and the gift of being REAL so they constantly boost my energy. I’ve learned to choose wisely how much time I spend with the energy takers. I try to avoid energy depleters as much as I can.

Are you a priority or an option?

“A friend sent me the saying: ‘Why make someone a priority when to them you’re only an option!’

“There are some people who are stuck on the negative, can only concentrate on themselves and see what’s in it for them, or who see other things as more valuable than me. I have to let them live life as they see it. They are on a different path that fits them.

“A speaker at one of our support group meetings shared that there are times when you have to be with the negative ones. She said to view them as a ‘nail file.’ A little bit of them can be useful and helpful (even the worst ones can teach us how NOT to be) BUT a whole lot of them can be dangerous and harmful.”

It’s not always possible to avoid the energy suckers in the working world, but tell yourself at least you’re getting paid to be around them.

That is not to say that we are pushing what Dr. Jimmie C. Holland refers to as “the tyranny of positive thinking.”

Holland is chair in psychiatric oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

In a Web excerpt of her book, “The Human Side of Cancer,” Holland debunks the notion that those of us with cancer should be what I would call “Perpetual Pollyannas of Positivity.”

“For most patients, cancer is the most difficult and frightening experience they have ever encountered,” Holland writes.

“This hype claiming that if you don’t have a positive attitude and that if you get depressed you are making your tumor grow faster invalidates people’s natural and understandable reactions to a threat to their lives. That’s what I mean by the tyranny of positive thinking.”

Coping differently

We have different coping styles and, for some of us, maintaining a positive attitude would not only be foreign, but actually an added burden.

Between the extremes of beliefs on the role of the mind and emotions in cancer, she says, there lies a middle ground of “believing that how we respond to cancer certainly affects the quality of our lives — and might have an impact on survival.”

None of us knows the quantity (length) of life we’re going to have, and as I move along this road, the quality of my life (how I spend my time and with whom) becomes more and more important.

As Hindenach wrote, “Along the way, I’ve learned to live between doctor visits, with medical scares and a few surgeries.

“I look at each of them as a gift. They forever remind me how fast my life did and can change to renew my mindset to make each day count.”

Sue Schroder, former features editor for The Grand Rapids Press, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in late 2009. Email her at livenow.ss@gmail.com.